Paul Poulton considers the effect our decisions have on our lives

Paul Poulton

I had a friend at school called Pezza; he was 16, I was 14. We sometimes used to hang out with each other outside school too. I looked up to him. He played guitar, he was funny and he happened to be going out with a beautiful Essex girl called Linda. She had long curly black hair, a smooth dark complexion and seemed to me, an intelligent girl. Then one day Pezza told me he wasn't seeing Linda anymore. "What?" I exclaimed, "Why not?" It turns out that the stereotypical image of Essex girls as portrayed on TV may not be true if Linda is any example to go by. Linda had a mind of her own with some strong principles attached to that mind: There was something she didn't want to do, which Pezza did want to do. "So", he told me, "she can forget it." Just at that moment the corner of my eye detected the graceful high-heeled steps of Linda walking straight towards us. What followed I witnessed at close quarters. Linda didn't seem to mind that other people were present, with the glint of a tear in her eye she implored my 16 year old mate Pezza to reconsider his position in their relationship. I remember thinking how brave, humble and stunning she was, Pezza must surely give in. But to my shock and Linda's regret, he was resolute, he didn't want to go out with her any more and that was that. We watched Linda's elegant form walk away into the distance. I would have run after Linda myself, but I fully understood the universal law that the gulf between a scruffy 14 year old boy and smart sophisticated 16 year old girl is too vast; she would not be interested in me. Neither Pezza nor I ever saw Linda again, that, truly was that.

It's surprising how decisions we make when we are young and inexperienced can be so life changing. Ebenezer Scrooge was being shown scenarios from when he was a young man by the Ghost of Christmas Past. The Ghost took him to see his young-self at the precise moment when he broke up with his fiancée, the beautiful Belle. The young Ebenezer chose money instead of attending to his girlfriend. She left him with the parting words, "May you be happy in the life you have chosen". Then Scrooge's mysterious spirit guide showed him the same girl a few years later happily married with energetic children and loving husband all happily playing and laughing. "Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."

I'm not sure if my friend Pezza ever thinks about what could have been, and I don't like to ask, but I know I sometimes wonder. Some people seem able to remain philosophical when they look back at a bad decision they made in the past, and are able to maintain an upright stance and some personal dignity. But usually, raw human emotion will beat a philosophical outlook every time. It runs deeper than we realise. Scrooge was forced by the spirit to watch his former girlfriend some more. He cried out, "No more, I don't wish to see it. Show me no more!" but the spirit, in his client's best interest worked conscientiously and the wretched man cried out once more, "Spirit! Show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"

When we start out 'life' looks like a straight line we have to follow. Then we have to make slight adjustments to the line because our plans aren't quite right, or some of our relationships get tangled. Then we come to a point where we say, "If only I knew then what I know now". It's then we realise that life isn't a straight line but a huge learning curve. And what's more startling is that decisions we made a while back remain with us. A bit like a tree that had a chunk accidentally cut out of it, the scar of the accident will always be in the tree; even if the tree lives another 100 years, when it's cut open the rings will show that the accident helped shape the way the tree grew. In fact a tree is a good analogy because trees often have curves. So maybe our learning curve doesn't move on a horizontal plane as we might imagine but grows upwards like a tree. Decisions we made when we are young remain part of us and help shape the way we grow. We 'grow up' in more ways than one. And a tree, however contorted by its environment, will still attempt to grow towards the sky.

Terry Waite was a hostage negotiator. In 1987, he agreed to meet with the captors of some hostages but was himself taken hostage. Terry remained in captivity for 1,763 days, the first four years of which were spent in total solitary confinement. After his release he wrote a book about his captivity, it's called 'Taken On Trust' and is ostensibly about his work as a hostage negotiator, but it's the subtext which fascinated me. What surprised him about his experience was how his childhood memories came back in full force. Although he was in a small room in the Middle East he was suddenly transported back to his primary school. He was shocked to realise that all those experiences he'd had in early childhood were still a part of him. He could see things like a little girl crying, she was upset by something Terry had said, he could feel her pain. He could walk into a bookshop he knew as a child and smell the newly printed books. In his mind he could turn the pages and gaze with childlike delight at the coloured illustrations. The pleasure he had experienced 40 years before returned to him in full measure. It was unnerving to see that all those experiences were still a part of him, which in turn, seems to imply that all my experiences are also a part of me, and that decisions I made as a teenager are still a part of me and helped shape me into who I am today. I am growing upwards like a tree.

There's an old English poem from 1697 that says:

As a tree falls, so shall it lie;
As a man lives, so shall he die;
As a man dies, so shall he be;
Through all the aeons of eternity.

The first line is actually taken from Ecclesiasties in the Bible. A tree is a good simile for our life. Some trees are scarred; I've seen trees that have the remains of lovers initials carved into the bark from years before. I wonder if the lovers who carved them are still together? Maybe not, but the tree still bears the scars of their love. Just like the lovers themselves may bear scars of their love deep in their hearts. And I guess we could all look back with sadness or horror at some of the decisions we've taken in the past; we can't deny that those decisions may have affected us more than we realise and may have altered the course of our lives in a dramatic way - sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. But if like me you have faith in God then you will know that somehow all things work for good in your life. And though it may be a little misshapen and scarred it's still a tree that can produce lots of good fruit.